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As a beginner, I bought one of Reaper’s starter kits which includes a lot of paints, several minis and a very useful booklet which walks you through painting the miniatures, explaining various techniques. It even recommends which colors to use, though you can use any color you wish. I purchased the first and second starter kits and found them very useful. Also picked up some cheap paints at Walmart which work well too.
One of my tips is to practice on your less “important” minis first. Learn, make mistakes, then paint some more. Soon you will start developing the more advance techniques like washing and dry brushing. After you get the hang of the basics, then begin working on more important minis in your collection.

I didn't start with a kit. I had Massive Darkness sitting there with all these minis and I just went to the hobby store and bought some paints after watching several tutorials on youtube. I can't tell if what I did was better or worse than the starter kit users. I just knew I was chomping at the bit to start painting MD minis. And I'm still painting them, though I'm down to the last 20% or so. One more (big) mob, a couple of bosses, a handful of roaming monsters, and then on to my heroes!

This website has tutorials for everything from basic techniques to competitive basing. I've used it as a resource a ton during my last two years in the hobby.
http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/2009/10/tutorial-overview.html

Wash your minis in warm (but not so warm it can melt/misshape the mini) soapy water. I take a soft bristle tooth brush and scrub them down a little. Before they cast the mold, they spray it with mold release. That can get stuck in the little detail depressions. After a wash, you'll see more detail lines.

Of you want cheap minis to practice on, get on Amazon and buy a bucket of green army men.
I have a list of equipment I could link, but the temptation is to make it a checklist. Paint, brush, mini. Glue. Hobby knife. Clippers. Beyond that, a paper towel placemat, a Styrofoam plate to put out paint and thin it, and a solo cup of water to clean your brush. And an adult beverage for during/after.
Start small, don't over think it, and shut up and paint. 😂

@Lindsey @Zoxe @Barb Bliss @RomyCat Thank yo so so much for the advice. I won't deny some of the stuff you're sharing is going over my head but I'm sure with time and patience I will learn. I will go ahead and jump in on a beginning Reaver set since they have minis to practice on. I really like that a lot.
If you have any other suggestions of supplies or things for a ROOKIE, please let me know and share . I will always take sage advice

There are A LOT of them. One thing I screwed up on was some of my bosses have different color robes/hair as their mob since I didn't do them at the same time.
p.s. I definitely want to see how you end up painting Liz Taylor, the thing, the unicorn, and the hell hound. And I hope you have some prancing Walverines too.

The armypainter starters for specific games are really useful and good value - removed the analysis paralysis that happens when staring at the huuuuuuge display of paints.
One downside is that they change a lot of the names on the bottle. So "skeleton bone white" becomes "fang bone white," or whatever. With a few exceptions, these are the same AP paints with a different label and name. Which is fine until you use up your earthy brown and creamy white and have no idea what color to buy as single bottle. They do print a reference sheet on their web page but it's really buried.
Like I said, I started with the two game specific kits for Shadows of Brimstone, and it was a great turnkey way to start. But now 3 years later am looking at ways to convert over to Reaper.

I have to plug Miniature Monthly on Patreon here. I subscribe at $10/mo and justify it as a magazine subscription that I would have been happy to pay 15-20 years ago.
Liz Beckley and Aaron Lovejoy are studio painters and have a long list of sponsors. Some of their vids are very advanced and made my hair melt and my brain run out my ears. But their content on model preparation, gap filling, wet palette use, and exposure to a wide range of products is entry level and very valuable.
They also have a pretty active discord channel, where you can ask questions direct to them and other users will jump in and assist. Similar vibe as the DMG forums here.
Maybe not for your first figures but something to consider.

Clipping: I generally get as close as possible but this does take some judgment. You don't want the gate (technical term for the sprue connection point) to tear and leave a void. Larger gates into round surfaces seem to to tear more for me. Having a good set of sharp flush cutters does help. I'll link the ones I use when not on my phone... they're great and were under $12 on Amazon.
After clipping, I usually scrape mold lines and gate tabs with the back of an x-acto. If that doesn't do the job I'll turn the knife around and use the sharp edge. I try to trim and clean all the parts before I glue them. Nothing worse than assembling s model and finding a really horrible mold line you can't reach.
Glue can be a really emotional and controversial discussion for some. There are a lot of opinions and a lot of choices. If the parts are plastic, I recommend plastic cement. Most hobby brands are very similar, but I've recently fell in love with Tamiya thin cement. It flows really well and the lid has a little brush for a lot of control. I've also used armypainter and GaleForce9, and they worked fine, but with their nozzle I ended up with more gloops and oopses.
If they are resin you must use superglue (I use loctite brand from walmart). If you aren't sure, glue some pieces of sprue together... If resin the glue will just peel off again.